Beatrix Gates papers, 1976-2007
Collection Scope and Content
The Beatrix Gates papers covers diverse materials from late 20th century poetry, publishing, and letterpress printing. In the Granite Press series, which makes up the majority of the collection, one can follow the various steps necessary to publish a trade paperback poetry book from pre-publication and editing to publicity, as well as examining the various business/financial aspects of a small press. In addition to information about Granite Press’s two paperback poetry books by Grace Paley and Joan Larkin, there is a significant amount of material on Granite Press’s ground-breaking anthology of Central American Women Poetry, IXOK AMAR GO, including the complicated relationship between Gates and the anthology’s editor. The papers also contain a substantial amount of letterpress drafts and proofs, which document the various stages of letterpress printing. In both the career and biographical series, there is information about Gates’s career as a poet and teacher, correspondence with poets, as well as material about lesbian and gay activities such as “Gary’s Gay Roommate Service” and a 1992 Pride Guide New York City.
Biographical/Historical Note
Beatrix Gates was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1949, and it was there, prowling the neighborhood bookstores in her youth, that she began to teach herself about poetry. One thing that distinguishes her work is her holistic approach to writing, as she has contributed to every phase and aspect of bookmaking; she is also a pioneer in the Women-in-Print movement of lesbian writers and artists.
Gates designed and printed her first book, native tongue, in 1973 in a letterpress edition under the Hopalong Press imprint. A few years later, as poet, printer, book artist, and lesbian feminist publisher, she founded Granite Press (1975-1989) in Penobscot, Maine. She has participated in building three printshops: in a barn in Monterey, Massachusetts; the old post office in Hancock, Maine; and the old cannery in South Penobscot, Maine. Gates designed and printed her second book, Shooting at Night, at Granite Press (1980), supported by the Maine Arts Commission. She entered trade publishing as an independent publisher with Grace Paley’s first book of poetry, Leaning Forward, followed by Joan Larkin’s A Long Sound; IXOK AMAR.GO: Central American Women Poets for Peace (ed. Zoe Angelsey), a multilingual anthology of 50 women poets and translators; and letterpress editions by Rosa Lane and Jean Valentine. Other anthologies she edited include The Wild Good: Lesbian Photographs and Writings on Love (1996) and her translation with Electa Arenal of Jesús Aguado’s The Poems of Vikram Babu (2009), which won a Witter Bynner Award.
As poet, activist, and publisher, Gates values working in community and has collaborated with many artists who enjoy the act of play. She has promoted poetry in community settings, such as her collaboration on “Poetry and Masks” with weaver, farmer, and gay activist Ron King for the Farm/Arts Exchange at Reversing Falls Sanctuary. Gates ran the Poetry Series at A Different Light Bookstore in New York City, the oldest LGBTQ bookstore in the U.S., from 1990 to 1996, highlighting emerging and published poets and honoring Essex Hemphill, Audre Lorde, and Muriel Rukeyser. She conceived and wrote the libretto for The Singing Bridge, an opera supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and produced in 2005 by Opera House Arts in Stonington, Maine. During the Covid pandemic, Gates led “Reading Poetry Together” for her local library, sharing works of poetry and prose online by former Poet Laureate Joy Harjo of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, Mary Oliver, Walt Whitman, and Pablo Neruda (in translation). And she curated the reading and conversation series “SIDELINES/ In Translation in more than one language” at The Cannery in South Penobscot, Maine, where she also served on the Board and participated in “Making the Archives Sing! Voicing Histories,” where she and former Maine Poet Laureate Julia Bouwsma shared poetry from invisible histories.
Beyond those works already mentioned, Gates is the author of Ten Minutes (2006 and 2011) and Dos (2014); more recently, in 2020 Artifact Press published her desire lines, which addresses forced and chosen migration, as a letterpress limited edition with prints on hand-made paper by poet and artist Heidi Reszies. Gates’ 2023 book, The Burning Key: New and Selected Poems 1973-2023 (Thera Books), featured new and uncollected poetry, letterpress editions, award-winning translations, and selections from seven books, including her Lambda Literary Award Poetry Finalist In the Open (1998). She has also published nonfiction, translations, and original poetry in The Kenyon Review, Tarpaulin Sky, Anthem, and many other venues.
A member of the Goddard MFA faculty for many years, Gates taught writing and literature in graduate and undergraduate programs at NYU, Bedford Hills Correctional facility, Borough of Manhattan Community College and City College in CUNY’s system, Maine Maritime Academy, and Colby College, as well as in urban and rural library and community settings. She earned an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and a BA from Antioch College and has been awarded fellowships by the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Ucross Foundation, among others. She lives in Down East Maine.